It’s been a long summer. I consider it almost over. It will be August 31st in just a few minutes. As I prepare to write about what we do after honey flows dry up and fall care begins I hope to touch on some ideas that will help those of you who may of purchased bees from us this spring or last spring. As nectar flow decrease and hive population reaches it maximum size you will want to watch your regional foliage. Pollen will also decrease as well as the brood nest in the hive. We’ve found that the queens sometimes become honey bound late August, early September. Consider checking that out. If this is your problem a easy fix is to remove a frame or two of honey and extract it. Return these frames back into your top box and preferably into the middle of the box. This will allow the bees to go back for any fall flows and the queen can get back to laying. We all need lot’s of fall bees to go into the winter. Brood laid in Aug., Sept., and Oct. will be the blanket of bees your queens relies on and needs to survive the winter. The more she has the better. Typically the last week of August we start our mite control. These treatments last until mid to late Sept. I don’t like to feed our bee pollen subs until were done with our mite treatments. When the last mite treatment is removed we typically use at least 2-4 lbs of pollen patties. This is a great idea to help boost the health of your hive. We’ve purchased our patties from Mann Lake this year. (free shipping) The only other treatment we would suggest people do is a small doses of Fumigil-B in Oct. As Nosema Spores start to multiply you want to get the young bees immune to those spores. If you don’t control Nosema with Fumigil you should really consider making sure your ventilation is good for your bees. COLD does not kill bees. Moist, wet, and high humid conditions allows pathogens too beat up on your girls. Eliminate the moisture and you will have a leg up on these issues. Consider drilling holes in your bottom board to insure no water pools up in early fall to early winter. Another option is for you to tip your hive so it drains properly. If you don’t have a hole near the top or on on the lid top look online at pictures to see ideas that will work for your equipment. Continue to search out reading material that talks about proper winter ventilation in or on the bee forum. Most bee keeping books also touch on this. I hope you find this helpful and I will continue to edit videos and notes to help all of us improve as Rocky Mt. keepers.
Regards
Chad

On to Febuary

Back to the budget plan.  I hope to have our fixed cost and variable cost listed on our site.  I also hope to have a small model of a percentage budget for a hive that we run.  That said, I don’t know if I’ll get to it before spring, but I really hope to.  Operation cost mean everything to us.  I’ve got to keep those numbers tight otherwise I’m working for free and giving money away to everyone but myself.  Good luck.

Chad

Were having a really nice Indian summer.  Highs are in the mid 60′s and lows are in 30′s for this week. Our bees are doing well.  This week I’ll be working two days on the bees themselves.  I’ll be pulling any last remaining mite treatments.  We primarily used Api Guard this year.  I used 3×5 index cards for the treatment to be spread on and let it set on the top of the frames, however sometimes the bees leave the card partially chewed up, so this week I’ll be removing any left over cards as I take inventory of the hives and tip any dead outs and combine 4 frame or under.  Rob will be flying to Utah to pick up a bee truck.  We both look forward to using that flat bed.  Currently status of the health of the bees is average.  The bees are relatively brood less and holding with a slight reduction in numbers from September.  Enjoy the rest lil queens.  Our shot gun approach management to mites works but I wish we could limit our treatments to hives that really need it.  Testing each hive seem extremely time consuming, we will evolve and figure out something other than a bottle shake with alcohol. I have not seen any of the hive beetles that hitched a ride home from last year.  Were lucky we don’t have to deal with them here in Colorado.  I’ll also mark with a large crayon the hives that need to be fed before California.  Hives that don’t have good stores in there top box will get 3-5 pounds fondant next week.  Hive Count approximately 600.

Thanks for reading

Chad

The hardest thing I’ve learned in the last 5 years is trying to find safe places to put bees.  In these times were constantly looking for new apiaries and holding yards for our bees.  Lately I’ve bee looking on the Grand Mesa for acres that have clean water and good forage, however the bear fencing slows me down as black bear are everywhere up there.  A couple of weeks ago I built another fence out in Fruita that was supplied from the the Division of Wildlife here in Colorado.  I think it will work well if we can build them all that way.  Rob and I and even made video about bear fencing that you can watch on YouTube.  Just type in key work “Electric Bear Fence and Honey bees”  Apishive Co. should pop up for you.  As of today I’m still looking for additional bee yards.  I think tomorrow I’ll drive out to Mack and Loma area and take a look around.

Till next time

We’ve got to figure out a better system for pollen patties.  Our current recipe of Mega bee, sugar syrup, canola oil, cinnamon comes out the right consistency but find it still goes harder faster in the hive.  Particularly in the hives that are smaller and unable to consume it quickly.  Furthermore our lids are not giving me enough space between the lid and frames.  Unfortunately  I think your going to have to rip 3/4″ strip of shim to give us the space we need for our pollen substitute well add in December.  Also this winter I’ll be mixing up some Mann Lake Bee Pro.  It’s a bit less money and a few of the keepers I talked to mentioned that it’s work well for them and at a pretty good savings per hive.  I’ll get the cost comparison for you.  I’ll also order our bee feed from Mann Lake Bakersfield to be picked up the last week in December before New Years.  Today I’ll be checking the progress on the 30 hives that we placed the 5 lbs. of fondant on in September.  I’ll post the progress here.  We have the remainder of fondant arriving on Wed.  I’m planning of giving the hives that are light a minimum of 5 lbs. each with 1 lb of pollen sub.  For those of you interested in our Mega Bee recipe:  for a 50 lb bag we add 4 cups of canola oil, and 1/4 cinnamon.  We’ve found the oil slows the harding process.  The cinnamon is a fun addition that we like add and make it smell good.  Who knows maybe it helps something.

Honey bees are our business and regardless if you are a novice bee keeper or a fruit grower with needs to help your crops thrive, we can help .